 | From humble beginnings...Te Whakaruruhau Māori Women’s Refuge first opened in 1986 through the efforts of a group of local Māori women active in Te Kakano O Te Whānau and Hamilton Māori Women’s Centre. Although not the ‘first’ Māori Women’s Refuge in Aotearoa, Te Whakaruruhau was the first Māori Women’s Refuge to affiliate with the National Collective of Independent Women’s Refuges (NCIWR). In these early years, the service was setup to provide a 24 hour crisis response team and safe housing. The overall goal was to save lives and reduce further adverse effects on those whānau impacted by domestic violence. Although our core services have remained the same since opening 27 years ago, TWH safe house has now transformed into a service which encompasses whole whānau. Our aim is to assist Whānau to “break the cycle of violence”. |
Community support and advocacy make up a large part of the work that Te Whakaruruhau undertakes. Community support has been developed over the years to assist Māori women and their children who wish to remain in their homes. The main aim of this service is to support whānau to stabilise their affairs such as, housing, income (WINZ), medical, legal and more increasingly extended whānau. The reality for many Whānau who decide to stop the violence is that they lose a resource through seperation or incaceration of the partner. Many struggle to come to terms with the crisis that brought them to refuge in the first place, restabalise their families while enduring seperation issues. Refuge also provide semi supported community living programs such as transport to and from agencies, internal counselling programs and the provision of food, clothing and furniture from community donations. |   |
  | Meet Ruahine Albert...Ruahine Albert, of Hamilton, received the Queen's Service Medal, for services to Maori and the community. She was one of the driving forces behind the establishment of a new family facility at Te Whakaruruhau in Hamilton, which was opened in 2011, that can accommodate 30 family members recovering from domestic violence. Along with her extensive involvement in women’s refuge work she has been involved in iwi relationship management. She has had leading roles in Child, Youth and Family, Work and Income, Housing New Zealand, Hamilton Abuse Intervention Project, the Maori Reference Group, the Waikato Youth Offending Team and Family Start. Ms Albert is on the External Maori Advisory Group for the New Zealand Police and is a representative of Hamilton Women’s Refuges at national and regional conferences. |
